Top US House Republican McCarthy calls for Biden impeachment inquiry

Instigated by his party’s right flank, Republican US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for an investigation into Democratic President Joe Biden’s possible impeachment on Tuesday. This move is guaranteed to further polarise lawmakers as they struggle to agree legislation to prevent a government shutdown.

“I am directing our House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,” McCarthy told reporters.

Many in McCarthy’s party were furious when Republican President Donald Trump was twice impeached by the Democratically controlled House – in 2019 and 2021 – despite being cleared both times by the Senate.

The following year, Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, will run for office again. Although they haven’t provided evidence, Republicans, who currently barely control the House, have accused Biden of making money off his son Hunter Biden’s international business activities when he was vice president from 2009 to 2017.

According to a transcript that was made public last month, a former business partner of the younger Biden testified in a House committee that Hunter Biden offered the “illusion” of having access to authority while his father was vice president.

Biden has made fun of Republicans who are considering an impeachment, and the White House has declared that there is no grounds for an investigation.

Democrats have attempted to paint Republican discussion of impeachment as an effort to divert attention away from Trump’s legal troubles, who is currently the target of four different criminal indictments while seeking his party’s nominee to run against Biden in the 2024 presidential race.

Republicans have been urged by Trump to try and depose Biden. Hard-right Republicans have stated that they won’t support budget packages that must pass unless McCarthy authorises an impeachment investigation.

According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the authority to remove the president for treason, bribery, and “other high crimes and misdemeanours.” A president may be removed from office if articles of impeachment are approved by the House with a simple majority and are found guilty by the Senate with a two-thirds majority following a trial.

Impeachment proceedings against Biden are unlikely to be successful. Even if Biden were to be impeached by the Republican-controlled House, which is doubtful given the party’s slim 222-212 vote advantage, it would almost surely fall short in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The only American president to have been impeached twice is Donald Trump. Thanks to Republican votes that kept the Senate from reaching the two-thirds majority required for conviction, he was found not guilty both times after Senate trials.

After asking Ukraine to look into Biden and his son on the basis of unfounded corruption allegations, the House indicted Trump in 2019 in his first impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. After his followers attacked the U.S. Capitol, the House impeached him for the second time in 2021 on the accusation of encouraging an uprising.

In the first impeachment, his resignation was the goal. The second, with a trial after he left office, attempted to bar Trump from ever serving in that capacity again.

Trump referred to both impeachments as politically motivated witch hunts, as he has with several probes into his behaviour.

In July, Biden made light of Republican lawmakers’ threats to remove him from office.

“Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down. Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down. I don’t know. I’d love that one,” Biden had said at the time.

(With agency inputs)